Anglican Primate says he had limited powers to intervene in child abuse cases in Grafton

MARK COLVIN: The final day of the Royal Commission's public inquiry on child abuse at the New South Wales North Coast Children's Home has heard from Australia's most senior Anglican cleric, Archbishop Phillip Aspinall.

The inquiry has wound up its examination of the Grafton Diocese and how it responded to compensation claims from dozens of abuse survivors from the children's home in Lismore.

The Grafton Diocese spent years denying that it was responsible for the orphanage, but now says it's re-opening all the files to make sure victims have been adequately compensated.

Today the Primate of the Anglican Church of Australia, Dr Aspinall, told the inquiry that the Grafton Diocese had focused on its own finances to the detriment of the abuse victims. But he said he had little power to intervene.

Emily Bourke reports.

EMILY BOURKE: The Primate of the Anglican Church of Australia, Phillip Aspinall, is the most senior religious leader to come before the Royal Commission.

PHILLIP ASPINALL: If I might use a commercial analogy: if people think that the Primate of the Anglican Church of Australia is the CEO of Australia's Anglicans, then nothing could be further from the truth. The Primate has very, very limited powers.

PHILLIP ASPINALL: The politics are very difficult and it's very difficult to get any kind of uniform approach to any matter. And so you have some dioceses where women can be priests and bishops and other dioceses where they can't be. You have some dioceses where a prayer book is licensed for use and other dioceses where it's not.

GAIL FURNESS: Are you able to say that, in each of the 23 dioceses, there is, on paper, precisely the same principles and protocols for dealing with child sexual abuse within the Church?

PHILLIP ASPINALL: No, I'm not.

EMILY BOURKE: The leadership of the Grafton Diocese has been criticised for breaching its own policies and taking a hard-line legal approach to abuse victims from the North Coast Children's Home.

Dr Aspinall said these were gross failings and that he tried to steer the Grafton Bishop, Keith Slater, away from litigation.

PHILLIP ASPINALL: My understanding is that, in mediation negotiations, in settlement negotiations with such a mediator, the mediator can meet with the parties separately. And it would have been possible for a mediator to say to Grafton, "Look, you're being unrealistic here. You know, these are the kinds of settlements that have been reached in other places; this really is your obligation; we're not going to reach agreement here unless you change your view."

And that was one of the reasons - fairness and justice for the victims as well as for the Church - that I encouraged both Mr Harrison and Grafton to engage such a person but, it seems, to no avail.

EMILY BOURKE: Evidence also emerged today about the flaws in the Anglican Church's national register of clergy who are the subject of abuse allegations or convictions.

Michael Elliott is the professional standards director for Newcastle and Grafton.

MICHAEL ELLIOTT: As a matter of course, when a matter's entered on the register, a letter is sent out to the person whose information is being placed on the register. So it automatically notifies them of the complaint and the nature of it, which may compromise a police investigation.

EMILY BOURKE: Martin Drevikovsky from the General Synod said that, five years after its introduction, the national register remains incomplete with many files still to be checked.

MARTIN DREVIKOVSKY: It could be somewhere between 145 and about 210 files that still need to be reviewed.

PETER MCCLELLAN: Of which the assumption, I assume, is a proportion will end up on the register?

MARTIN DREVIKOVSKY: It's estimated that it could be somewhere between about 41 and 46 and possibly more persons still need to be entered on the register.

EMILY BOURKE: The Grafton Diocese says it's now reviewing all the claims from abuse victims from the Lismore Children's Home to ensure that they've been treated compassionately and compensated adequately.

But Archbishop Phillip Aspinall has urged the Royal Commission to impose a national compensation scheme.

PHILLIP ASPINALL: It may well be helpful if this Royal Commission were able to achieve a uniform mandatory compensation scheme which would ensure parity, not just between Anglican dioceses, but across government organisations and all community organisations, so that we don't have different classes of victims.

I think, in terms of the Anglican Church, it would be much quicker and simpler for us if that were imposed on us from outside. And then dioceses wouldn't fall into the trap that Grafton did in terms of focussing on financial matters to the detriment of victims. They would simply be given a determination by a statutory body and required to find the money.

MARK COLVIN: Dr Phillip Aspinall, the Primate of the Anglican Church of Australia. Emily Bourke was the reporter.